The Client
The Certified Managerial Accountants of British Columbia were looking to market their newly creative Executive Network. The network was designed to facilitate exclusive peer to peer interaction between top executives and senior financial managers.
The Work
The concept for the marketing collateral revolved around going beyond the three pillars of the CMA: accounting, strategy, and management. Marketing touch points created include: a full page advertisement in BC Business, Brochure, and Eblast Newsletter.
CMABC Brochure Cover
Brochure inside
Brochure inside 3
Brochure - Apply
BC Business Ad
Eblast
The Client
PPC a global provider of employee assistance programs (EAP) approached us to design an advertisement for the EASNA (Employee Assistance Society of North America) publication.
The target audience for the advertisement were already educated on what an EAP is, so the goal was to give them a reason to choose PPC over the competition.
The Work
We came out of the initial brief knowing what makes PPC different and better than their competition. PPC is very responsive to clients unique needs unlike most EAP providers. While the competition is more template focused PPC is able to create highly customized solutions for their clients.
From here we looked over previous EASNA publications to see what sorts of ads the competition were putting out. Most of the ads made little or no impression as they had no driving concept to support the visuals and content.
We chose a concept that positioned PPC as A Custom Fit provider of EAP. We put together content that showcased PPC as provider of EAP services that fits their clients needs and not force them into a one size fits all solution.
PPC Worldwide Advertisement for EASNA Publication
The Client
PPC Canada, a provider of employee assistance programs throughout Canada asked us to create a promotional poster for their new program the Stress Buster Line. This program was created to assist front line customer service workers in coping with the daily stresses which are common within their industry. The Stress Buster Line is not counselling but a point of intervention to assist employees in relieving stress before it culminates in their work and home life.
The Work
After our initial brief with the client we set out to develop a visual language and writing style that would both get the attention of the target audience and entice them to use the service. To do this we needed to create content that was relatable to the people working as customer service agents who, more often than not, deal with clients over the phone.
We explored the idea of sound and how it can be visually depicted since most of the contact with clients will be over the phone and not face to face. From here the idea of sound and how it can be perceived was explored and developed.
Concept for Stress Buster Line
We wanted to show how ones perception of those same potentially stressful conversations will be transformed once they have called the stress buster line. With this we chose a language that was serious but still conversational and inviting.
Poster for PPC Canada's Stress Buster Line
Thanks Catrin for taking this photo. Put it to the test. No matter what, it will always deliver a great answer.
Try it!
It’s been 30 years since a scientist at 3M created an adhesive (by mistake) that stuck without permanently attaching itself to whatever it was stuck to. It eventually made it’s way onto the back of note paper and forever called the post-it note.
We came across what creatives do with post-its. It will make you want to head to Staples and try-it! Too cool for school!
Wall-it
Store-it
Elvis-it
Billboard-it
Bored and needing to inspire your next “Make a Thing a Day Project”? These coffee cups stir up the creative java juices.
A friend and I dropped into a coffee shop called The Sanctuary in Calgary. It was a lovely modern little coffee shop with this little shelf tucked under the counter that housed anonymous doodler creations on blank coffee cup canvasses. My eyes just zoomed in on these coffee cups, because they were so striking.
We would love to know who drew them and if there have been any new additions. Please share we would love to see them.
Mosaic Medley
Abstract Tarzan's (The favourite by far)
Thumb prints and flourishes
At the HOW Denver 2010 Conference of course! HOW Design ran two consecutive conferences and attracted over 3,000 designers, keen to keep up with trends or listen to great speakers like Gail Anderson (famous for designing for the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine and incidentally Type Camp made it to the cover of STEP magazine, also designed by Gail).
Day 1:
What do most people do when they arrive in a great American city? They go shopping and get massages! Got our J Crew fix, ate and got organized for the Typographic workshop, Dr. Shelley Gruendler was facilitating the next morning to 200 hungry designers.
Day 2:
Sunday morning Typography Workshop. Dr. Shelley took the designers through three typographic activities. Sharpies, paper, and the zillions of ideas flowing. When you are with Shelley, think mammoth, create something memorable, and then pull it all together into a movie! That’s what we did. Each designer had 3 que cards and a sharpie. First they brainstormed a word that spoke what typography is or could be. That word then had to relate to every person at their table. They wrote that word on a que card sans any design. Next, on the 2nd que card they were instructed to go crazy designing that word for what it means. Last, they took their 3rd que card and designed the in between.
We photographed each que card. With the help of super Daria, produced this typographic video where every word says something about typography and connects into a long string of words. Very cool!
Day 2 continued:
With the workshop behind us, now it was time to setup the very first Type Camp booth! Walking into the exhibition area, we were blown away by all the cool companies exhibiting: Veer, Neenah Paper, Big Stock, Pantone, Threadless, French Paper, and more. The swag was unbelievable!
The Type Camp booth was much bigger than we anticipated, which meant we had to make some quick design additions. Thank goodness for laptops, Adobe Illustrator, vector files and Kinkos. We took the Type Camp business card with the beaver and simulated wood background. We blew that up and placed it on a huge banner. Voila! The backdrop to the Type Camp booth was no longer just a black curtain.
After a quick bite to eat, we arrived back to the exhibit hall to find crowds of designers lined up and waiting to get in. As we rushed back to our booth, we found we had new neighbours; a bar and a bar tender. Not bad! 8 pm rolled around, the doors opened, and a massive slam of designers raced from booth to booth. It could have been the Barcelona Bull Run for all we knew. As one girl tweeted, “Did anyone get dry humped at the French Paper booth last night?”
Our booth was packed with people asking, “What’s Type Camp?”. We probably talked to 500 people that night. Cough drops anyone? Our neighbouring bar was lined up with a hundred plus people who had nothing to do except look at the Type Camp booth. We could not have been happier. It turned into an amazing opportunity to build awareness about an idea that started in Galiano, BC and has blossomed to intensive typographic workshops in countries like India, USA, England, Italy, Brazil to name few.
Day 3 and 4:
The booth was our primary modus operandi, but with the exhibition hall only open at designated hours we were free to kibitz with our fellow exhibitors, pick up some free swag, take in some of the HOW speakers, rummage through the bookstore, and visit more of Denver.
Looking back it was a fantastic trip! It was the first dot on the United States awareness map for Type Camp.
Earlier this year we were approached by Claire Booth to design a logo and a website for her market research company Lux Insights. Lux is often mistaken for luxury. It actually means to enlighten or shed light. It’s an appropriate name for a smart little market research company that provides enlightened market research that their clients can act on. With all this in mind we set out to create a smart corporate identity and website design that would connote light and bringing research to life.
Thanks to fantastic teaching (CID Program) we follow a process that digs to the deeper concepts. We don’t just stop at those immediate surface level concepts that if you put 20 designers in the room, more than half would have all thought of the same concept.
Post creative brief we conduct some light market research to explore the industry, the target market, in order to identify significant trends and define the company SWOT. Together this helps us to narrow down the core messaging that will eventually be turned into a visual representation of the brand. To start nailing down the visual representation of the brand we explore, colour, form, style, and typography with visual mood boards. This enables the client to further define their likes and dislikes and narrow our focus for the development of their creative, in this case the logo and website.
Next we moved into the sketching phase. 80% of our work is completed on paper. We’ve learned that heading straight to the computer slows the creative process down. At this stage we need to get as many ideas as possible on paper. With the a couple of type faces chosen (Museo and Antagometrica) we produced about 30 different sketches. These are the directions we shared with Claire:
Museo Sketches
Antagometrica Sketches
Final versions of the logo
Take a look at the rest of the work we completed for Lux Insights in our Portfolio.
Sin of Vagueness image, courtesy of Terra Choice Environmental
The consumer packaged goods industry has a long history of duking out margins and shelf space to drive sales and build brand loyalty. For many consumers, making healthy and eco-friendly choices, is becoming a strong deciding factor to select one brand over another. The packaging, messaging, and claims all look promising at first glance, but as you dig deeper, you’ll uncover false claims and certifications that, yes, even you’ve fallen for.
A marketing firm by the name of Terra Choice Environmental Marketing regularly checks in on the environmental claims made by consumer markets. In 2009, they published The Seven Sins of Greenwashing. A group of researchers took a deeper look at product details and claims and found that on 2,219 products, nearly 5,000 green claims were made. Ninety-eight percent of those claims committed at least one Greenwashing Sin.
The first and probably the biggest issue highlighted in “The Seven Sins of Greenwashing Report” were the creation of fake labels or false suggestions of third-party endorsements. Unfortunately, as consumers, it’s partially our fault, because we’re demanding to see these third-party certifications on the products we buy. Companies are only too happy to meet that demand with their own made up certifications and endorsements that seem real to the average consumer. How can you tell if a third party certification label is legitimate? Consumer Reports has launched their Greener Choices website. Their Eco-labels center allows you to verify any suspect labels. “As a consumer, look for a third party certification — not just a shiny graphic and educate yourself about what these labels mean. As a designer, ask lots of questions and take responsibility for verifying the claims on your own work”, suggests Vancouver-based design consultant Lisa Hemingway who teaches Design for Sustainability in Langara’s Communication and Ideation Design program.
Kids (toys and baby) products, cosmetics and cleaning products are the three categories in which green claims — and greenwashing are the most common. Consumers often fall victim to the vague or no proof claims that a particular product is “biodegradable’, ‘natural’, ‘organic’, ‘made with natural materials’, and ‘earth-friendly’ and so forth. Natural doesn’t mean it’s green. Didn’t you know, arsenic, mercury, formaldehyde are all ’100% natural’?
With the heightened awareness of the impact people have had on the environment, consumers make feel good purchasing decisions in the hopes of creating a better future. The good news is green product claims are on the rise, because companies are working to meet the needs of the green consumer movement. With proper education around these certifications, ideally we will get to a point where consumers demand a standard to a point where you can’t just call it green without backing it up. Consumers are getting wiser and an army of sources is ready to tell them what’s a fact and what’s fiction, like the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index. It’s a great source that’s helping consumers become more savvier about evaluating environmental marketing claims and holding businesses accountable for these claims.
Well, after playing “the sins of greenwashing game, I’ve gone home to take a look inside my own cupboards. I now know that I’ve unassumingly brought shampoo, dishwasher soap, and even tetra pak juice that all committed one or more Greenwashing Sins. On your next shopping trip, can you spot the Greenwashing Sins?
